Thursday, April 16, 2009

Last night was jewelry making class night. We did some awesome stuff: pressing patterns into metal (did not know this was possible) and riveting. I pressed some leaves into a piece of copper, but because I had cut my piece bigger than the rollers, the pieces of metal bound up and I wound up with a mangled mess. The leaves came out fairly well, but not great. Since the metal had been annealed (softened with a torch) I was able to bend it into a flower around a bead. It did not turn out quite the way I had hoped, mostly because I didn't take the folding into consideration when I cut out my shape. That's what I get for going by the seat of my pants. It's something I want to try again, and now I know how to go about it. The riveting was very cool, but involved very tiny pieces of wire that I knew would frustrate me to no end and I couldn't think of an immediate application, so I learned the technique, but didn't try it out. Instead I worked on this pendant that I made myself from silver. A big step up from my lopsided star, huh? Oh, and a side note: it is REALLY hard to photograph large pieces of metal. I had a hard time getting the texture I worked so hard on to show up, as you'll see from the photo, which shows no texture whatsoever. You'll just have to take my word on it - there's a fun, buttery texture from a lot of sanding and some baking soda paste applied with a toothbrush. The two white stones are moonstones, and the center purple stone is a lovely amethyst. I can't wait to attach it to something so I can wear it!